Why B Corp Certification Matters When Choosing a Digital Partner

A B Corp digital agency has had its social and environmental performance checked by B Lab, and it has written a duty to people and the planet into its legal documents. If you're choosing a partner for a platform that will run for years, that gives you a quick way to see how an agency behaves when nobody is watching.

Most agencies say they have values. Very few have to prove it.

Becoming a B Corp Agency

Back in 2022, I had a chat with Alex from Climbing Trees about exploring B Corp. Through 2023, we worked out what the process involved, completed an initial assessment and submitted our application to B Lab.

In March 2025, Steadfast Collective became a certified B Corp, one of around 2,400 in the UK at the time.

Alex's advice stuck with me: "Whether or not you become a B Corp, the world will be better for you going through the process."

He was right. The assessment made us write down things we'd assumed, and it showed us where we had work to do.

We certified under the old model. When our recertification comes round, it will be against the new standards, with minimums across all seven Impact Topics rather than one overall score. We see that as a good thing.

As a b corp technology company, most of our work is building membership websites and community platforms for professional bodies, associations and purpose-led organisations. Being a purpose-led digital partner means their members, their team and the planet all come into the decisions we make on their behalf, not just the launch date.

We never want to grow for the sake of it. The people behind B Lab feel the same, as we heard in Human Connections at Scale.

What B Corp certification actually means

A B Corp is a company that B Lab has checked against "high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability."

B Lab has been setting these standards since 2006. An independent Standards Advisory Council develops them, with members drawn from business, government, academia and non-profits.

Most current B Corps certified under the old model. A company had to score at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment, which covers governance, workers, community, environment and customers. A strong score in one area could make up for a weak one, and critics called that points-based approach "too flexible".

That changed on 8 April 2025, when B Lab published its new standards and described them as "the most significant evolution in the nonprofit's 19-year history."

Every B Corp now has to meet Foundation Requirements (legal incorporation, at least 12 months of trading, compliance with local and national law, signing the Declaration of Interdependence) and then minimum requirements across seven Impact Topics, including Climate Action, Human Rights and Fair Work. Requirements increase over time too, with a "Year 0" bar to certify and further requirements at Year 3 and Year 5.

B Lab began recertifying existing B Corps on the new standards in January 2026, and new companies could certify on them from March 2026. Audits are now carried out by independent assurance providers.

In the UK there is also a legal change. A limited company has to amend its Articles of Association to include B Lab's wording, verbatim: to have "a material positive impact on (i) society and (ii) the environment, taken as a whole."

B Lab UK's homepage now lists over 3,000 B Corps in the UK.

Why it matters when choosing a digital partner

Choosing a digital partner is rarely a short relationship. A membership platform or a bespoke web application can run for five or ten years, and the agency that builds it often looks after it long after launch.

We've worked with many of our clients for 5+ years, with very few clients choosing to move on.

this is why picking an agency which aligns with your values is really important and B Corp certification helps in a few specific ways.

From 2026, independent assurance providers audit companies against the standards. An agency can't simply claim it.

The purpose clause sits in the Articles and binds the directors. It's designed to hold through investment, a change of leadership or a sale, which matters when your platform depends on an agency still being the same agency in five years.

Under the new standards, a company can't excel on climate and ignore how it treats its people, because every Impact Topic has a minimum.

B Lab investigates "material, credible and specific claims" of misrepresentation, and certification can be taken away. BrewDog certified in February 2021 with a score of 81.8 and left the scheme in December 2022, after a BBC investigation into its workplace culture.

In B Lab UK's 2024 brand awareness survey, 63% of respondents said they use the certification to decide who to buy from or work for, up from 56% in 2022. At the UK's 10-year B Corp event in November 2025, Deborah Meaden called certification a "shortcut" for spotting credible businesses.

It isn't the only signal, and it doesn't replace the usual checks on craft, process and references. We've written about those in how to pick a web agency.

How it shapes how we work

For us, ethical software development comes down to the decisions we make every week.

We build to outlast our involvement. Our aim has always been to leave the internet in a better place than we found it, which means sustainable technology that a client can keep running without us. We build on Laravel, an open-source framework, and we contribute open-source packages back to its ecosystem, so the tools we rely on get better for everyone using them.

Many of our projects run for months, sometimes years. So we start by listing a client's biggest pain points, ordering them by effort, and tackling the easiest first. One meaningful result early on builds trust faster than any promise in a proposal.

Our four stages (Discover, Architecture, Design, Develop) mean clients see decisions as they're made, not at the end.

We have a list of clients and sectors that we refuse to work with.

What to ask any agency about their values

Whether an agency is certified or not, these questions will tell you a lot:

• Which version of the B Lab standards are you certified on, and when do you recertify?

• Can I see your public B Corp profile?

• Have you made the legal change to your Articles of Association?

• Where are you weakest, and what are you doing about it?

• Who are your clients, and is there work you won't take on?

• How do you treat your own people, on pay, feedback and wellbeing?

• If you're not certified, what independent evidence do you have instead?

The "weakest" question is the one to listen to closely. Under the old model, strengths could hide weaknesses. Under the new B Lab standards, requirements rise at Year 3 and Year 5, so any honest B Corp should be able to say "here's what we're improving next."

An agency that can't answer that has either stopped looking or isn't telling you.

If you'd like to learn more about working with a B Corp digital agency, we'd love to chat.